During Monday's edition of The View, Sherri Shepherd -- who had served as a co-host on the ABC weekday program for seven years -- gave an emotional farewell in which she declared she is “so thankful for the group of friends and family that I have made and that have supported me” throughout her tenure.

Shepherd also acknowledged the criticism she'd received over the years from Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, Bill Maher, host of the Real Time program on HBO, and another talk show host who said "she could be replaced with a potato sack.” [See video below.]

When the program began, the studio audience chanted: “Sherri! Sherri! Sherri!” Co-host Whoopi Goldberg then stated: “It's an emotional day for all of us here at The View because after seven seasons at this table, Sherri Shepherd is moving on to different, bigger, better things, and it's never easy. How are you, Sherri?”

“I’m so extremely and profoundly grateful, for this has been one of the best seven years of my life,” Shepherd said, “because you know, I tell people 'step out on the fear' 'cause I didn't want to take this job 'cause I said I'm not a prosecutor. I don't know anything.”

She continued:

I grew up in a religion where we weren't into politics. I had to learn some stuff. It was very painful, my growing experience, publicly to grow here and to learn.

I have to say my boss, Barbara Walters, pushed me. I cried in my dressing room for three years, going “Why am I at this table? I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I remember one time another talk show said a potato sack could replace Sherri Shepherd, and I started crying” in her dressing room, she stated.

“All of a sudden, the doors flew open, and Whoopi came in there, and she was like, 'Look at me! Look at me!' And I was crying, and I said, 'I can't! You've got those sunglasses on,' so she popped them up.”

“And she said turn that blankety-blank TV off, and she said: 'If Barbara didn’t think you could do this, she wouldn’t have asked you to be here.'”

“I'm so thankful to be here,” where the people have said: “'It’s OK if you fall. Get back up, come back, sit at this table and learn again.’”

“This is surreal to me,” Shepherd continued. “I would sit on the couch when we're interviewing people and go 'Lord, I can't believe I'm sitting here.'" The set behind her displayed a collage of Shepherd and the celebrities and politicians she interviewed.

As NewsBusters previously reported, Shepherd ended her run on the program with a number of interesting incidents.

On June 5, she joined the rest of the View co-hosts in slamming U.S. Senator Rand Paul and Russian President Vladimir Putin for “picking on Hillary Clinton” over her husband's affair with former intern Monica Lewinsky since “that happened so long ago” and “there's so much more to focus on” with the former secretary of state.

A month later, the panelists dismissed a Quinnipiac poll that found Bill Clinton was the worst president since World War II. Shepherd spoke up for all the “happy” people on ObamaCare and claimed that when George W. Bush left the White House, he was then considered the worst president.

Then on July 9, Shepherd offered “another opinion” on the Supreme Court's controversial Hobby Lobby ruling by noting that the company still “covers a majority of things for women” before defending religious beliefs by stating that “If you don’t stand for something, you’re gonna fall for anything!"

Two days later, the co-hosts discussed the story of a Kentucky bank teller who was fired for telling customers to “have a blessed day.” Shepherd said Christians should use discretion while telling other people about the “good news.”